


Vigil

by dotfic



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-08-27
Updated: 1998-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each night he waits, and keeps his vigil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

>   
> DC Comics owns Batman and related characters. They are borrowed with the  
> utmost respect. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is by T.S. Eliot; the  
> poem "Frustration" is by Sir Alan Patrick Herbert.  
> 
> 
>   
> In the Batman time line, this is set at some point after "Knight's End,"  
> during some undefined, hypothetical case which requires Nightwing to return  
> to Gotham. It is set mostly in the continuity of the comics, but uses inspiration from  
> the animated series as well. (Efram Zimbalist, Jr., is Alfred Pennyworth,  
> now and forever).  
> 
> 
> written in 1998  
> 

  
10:27 pm

  
The Batcave  


  
The tall, thin, formally clad man stood to one side, watching as the powerful  
black car roared into life. It was difficult to be heard over the vehicle's  
purr, but lengthy discourse was unneeded and unwanted at that point anyway.  


  
There were two figures in the car, now hidden from view by the bullet-proof,  
tinted windshields, a spiky-haired boy in the colors of energy and youth,  
green and red, had taken his place beside the man, who wore the colors of  
night, black and gray. Another man, older than the boy but younger than the  
one in the driver's seat of the car, slender, with a long, black ponytail  
down his back, seemed to commingle elements of his companions. He wore black  
from head to toe, but his chest and shoulders were crested by a dark, aquamarine  
blue, like the markings of a bird.  


  
All three were masked.  


  
The car leapt forward and sped away along the access ramp leading out of  
the dark cavern.  


  
The ponytailed figure, last to leave, stepped on the clutch of his motorcycle.  
Pausing, he turned and grinned at the watching man. Even beneath the eye  
mask that so changed the young man's features, Alfred the butler still saw  
the face beneath clearly, as if he wore no mask. He saw all of them thus,  
the same way he could trace the outline of Bruce or Dick's boyhood features  
beneath their older ones. Then the motorcyle roared away after the long black  
car.  


  
"Godspeed, Master Dick," Alfred said after the blue and black-clad young  
man. He wasn't sure if he had been heard or not.  


  
Alfred stood stiffly, listening until the last remnants of the motor sounds  
died away. Worry touched the thin, dignified lines of his face fleetingly  
and was gone, brought under control. With a resigned, inward sigh, he  
acknowledged that this was going to be one of _those_ nights, given the nature  
of the case Batman was currently embroiled in. The butler turned, picked  
up a feather duster from a nearby metal table, and approached the cave's  
super computer.  


  
11:36 pm

  
The Batcave  


  
His dusting duties did not take long; they never did, despite the fact that  
he was the only member of the staff of Wayne Manor who ever came down here.  
Almost swallowed by the surrounding, cavernous dark of the bat cave, Alfred  
stopped cleaning the cracks between the knobs on some machine and its cabinet.  
It didn't really need it; the equipment was already spotless.  


  
Wryly, the man asked himself what other excuses he could find not to go upstairs  
and retire to his room for slumber. Which is what any sensible, sane, man  
would do, he added silently.  


  
Often on nights like this, he did manage to drift off by about 1 am, sometimes  
later, depending upon what time he saw Master Bruce off. His dreams were  
never soothing, those nights, not full-blown nightmares, but uneasy.  


  
Some nights, there was no sleep at all. It was bad enough thinking about  
two--and one of them still just a lad at that. But once again Master Dick  
had returned to Gotham to aid his former mentor. Not that Alfred didn't worry  
about the boy, away in a city with a reputation even worse than Gotham's,  
fighting crime without the aid of a sidekick. But as long as he couldn't  
see him, Alfred could imagine that he was all right, that he always pulled  
his weary body back to his apartment near dawn to tumble into sleep of his  
own.  


  
Seeing Master Dick's parting grin again--and Master Dick was usually the  
only one who grinned like that--made the worry fresher, more immediate.  


  
As he turned for the stairs, Alfred touched the metal gurney that stood to  
one side with the medical equipment, in the shadows, like a performer waiting  
for its cue. At least once, each of his charges had spent time on that gurney,  
while Alfred had been unexpectedly called into the role of a warrior, fighting  
something shapeless and formless and unknown. Not nameless, though. It had  
a name.  


  
And he did not dare turn to look at the tall, glass display case holding  
another suit of scarlet and green. Not on nights like this.  


  
Almost hastily, or what could be called haste in another man, he moved passed  
the metal platform and moved slowly up the curving stone steps, his shadow  
elongating up the wall.  


  
Well, perhaps he should go and see that the staff had dusted the library  
properly.  


  
2:18 am

  
The Library at Wayne Manor  


  
_ "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;_

  
Am an attendant lord, one that will do

  
To swell a progress start a scene or two,

  
Advise the prince; no doubt an easy tool,

  
Deferential, glad to be of use,

  
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

  
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

  
At times indeed, almost ridiculous--

  
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old...I grow old..."

  
Alfred snapped the leather-bound book closed with a bang that sounded loudly  
in the pressing silence of the book-lined room. He coughed as a cloud of  
dust rose from the book leaves, and made a mental note to have a chat with  
Perkins about it.  


  
He had chosen the book of poetry almost at random, seeking diversion. But  
there was no comfort to be found there, after all, even though his whole  
life Alfred had found books comforting.  


  
"That's the problem with these twentieth century writers," he said aloud,  
stiffly. "So depressing!" Replacing the volume on the shelf, he left the  
library and wandered into the kitchen.  


  
2:59 am

  
The kitchen of Wayne Manor  


  
The metal counters were spotless and gleaming in the cozy glow of the recessed  
light over the sink. Feeling a bit more cheerful--why did kitchens always  
have that effect? he settled onto a wooden counter stool in front of a cup  
of tea and a plate of shortbread. Meticulously, Alfred gave the tea-leaf  
strainer a few more bobs in the steaming water, then rested it on the small  
china dish he had retrieved for that purpose. He added a small amount of  
milk, no sugar. The tea, though brewed fresh from leaves, was decaffeinated;  
the last thing he needed right now was caffeine.  


  
In a corner on one of the counters stood a small, good, color TV. Alfred  
picked up the remote and turned it on, aware as he did so of a faint sense  
of desperation. That he should be turning to television for entertainment  
and distraction!  


  
An old black and white "Zorro" movie was playing; its masked, caped hero  
leapt from the gallery of a saloon, grabbed a chandelier, and swung over  
the heads of the villains. Then he made his escape out a window, leaving  
only a brief glimpse of the flicker of his cape behind him.  


  
Faintly, from another part of the house, he heard the grandfather clock strike  
the hour, a lonesome, resonant sound. Alfred changed the channel and found  
some relief in a very dull intellectual talk-show rerun on PBS.  


  
Alfred finished his shortbread and downed the lukewarm remnants of his tea.  
He took the plates and cup to the sink, washed them, dried them, and put  
them away. When he was done, he switched off the TV. The kitchen looked exactly  
as it had when he had entered, as if no one had been there at all.  


  
As he started to leave, he spotted something under the breakfast table. It  
was a high-school textbook, lying face-down with its spine open in a sloppy  
way that suggested it had fallen there, forgotten.  


  
Kneeling, Alfred picked it up and examined the cover. It was Tim's; a history  
textbook. The boy had complained the other day about losing a textbook here  
at the Manor.  


  
The brown student dust jacket was covered in all manner of doodles, mostly  
random spiraling designs, although there were a few sketches, of a popular  
comic-book character, of a sphere, of an elaborate eye mask, complete with  
shading that gave it a three-dimensional appearance.  


  
Something slipped out between the leaves, a sheet of loose-leaf paper. Still  
kneeling, Alfred picked it up and rose to his feet. It appeared to be a  
hand-written letter of some kind, and was signed "Love, Adriana." Alfred's  
eyebrows rose. Then, primly, he refolded the note and replaced it carefully  
back into the book without reading it.  


  
In addition to the doodles, the boy had scrawled quotes from a motley of  
sources. Many of them Alfred failed to recognize; no doubt they were from  
one of those new-fangled rock bands. But he was surprised to see a spattering  
of Shakespearian insults, lines from Coleridge, Blake, and a few TV shows  
Alfred knew Tim was nuts about. He turned the book over curiously, and a  
line leapt out at him. It had been written in black felt-tip, and was underlined  
twice as if it had particularly struck Tim in some way:  


  
_"The bravest soldier waits the best."_   


  
Alfred recognized the source; he had read the poet frequently during his  
days in WWII. He had taken great comfort in the writer's work, at his ability  
to poke fun at Der Fuhrer. He wondered how Tim had stumbled upon it; it was  
hardly of the current generation, and the poet was not quite considered to  
be English class material.  


  
Suddenly horribly tired, Alfred put the book down on the kitchen table where  
Tim would see it, switched off the light, and made his way upstairs, the  
shadows of the house enfolding him.  


* * *

  
_A shell exploded loudly nearby, causing the four men to throw themselves  
to the ground. It was night, but it was difficult to see the stars because  
of the smoke that wisped and hung in the air. Their faces grimy, streaked  
with sweat, the four waited, their breath ragged, realizing they were still  
alive. Their parachutes had dropped them in a small cluster of pine trees  
whose needles were dried, the branches dying because of the war-torn earth.  
 Beyond the tree circle a once green field was a morass of mudd and  
barbed wire._   


  
_"You never hear the one that gets you," Alfred told his companions._   


  
_"What a comfort," the young soldier said sarcastically._   


  
_The night was still, for the moment. Alfred looked at the faces of the  
other three men, the remaining members of his unit._   


  
_Something wasn't right--a moment ago, they had been Hansen and Davies  
and Murray. But it wasn't their faces he saw beneath the grime, looking to  
him, their lieutenant, for leadership, but another three._   


  
_Panic rose in his throat. He gripped the tall, dark-haired man that had  
once been Davies by the shoulders, about to shout at him to take the others  
and get out of there, to leave the front and never come back, that they weren't  
supposed to be there._   


  
_A whistling sound laced through the night, another explosion. _   


* * *

  
3:46 am

  
Alfred's Quarters  


  
With a bellow, Alfred sat up in bed, his forehead and back damp with a cold  
sweat. Slowly, the fright faded as he took in the familiar, simply but elegantly  
furnished setting of his room. The same room he had occupied for nearly half  
a century.  


  
Trying to sort out the meaning of the dream in his mind (and rationalizing  
in every way possible that it was not a premonition), he pushed back the  
covers, rose, put on his robe, and made his way to the bathroom. He turned  
on the light, the brightness momentarily comforting. Using a glass on the  
shelf, he poured himself a glass of water, then switched the bathroom light  
off. He returned to the bedroom, glass in hand. Moonlight partially lit the  
room, coming in through the half-open curtains. Alfred hated to sleep with  
the curtains all the way closed, it made him feel stifled.  


  
A haze of silver light from a waning half moon fell over the dresser, striking  
the frames of the photographs he kept there. A lovely young woman, photographed  
in black and white in a hair-style of the 1930's.  Another photo, a  
group of men in uniform, also black and white.  A picture of Bruce as  
a young boy, dark haired, grinning, from a brighter time. Pictures of Bruce  
with his parents. Dick Grayson at various ages from nine onward, a photo  
of the lad in cap and gown at his high school graduation, Bruce's arm across  
his shoulders, looking very much like a proud father. Tim was there too,  
some taken when he was still just the-boy-next-door, during various summers.  
It was frightening, how quickly someone one knew only in passing, could become  
so important.  


  
One small photo in a square frame stood towards the back of the dresser,  
of a dark-haired boy with a confident, almost arrogant smile and a spark  
in his eyes, but a sadness, too. It was the only photograph in the house  
of its kind, to Alfred's knowledge. The hurt, even after the passage of years,  
was still too fresh, for all of them--if Bruce, too, kept some small remembrance  
beyond the display in the cave, he had not shared it with his butler.  


  
4:15 am

  
The Batcave  


  
Stifling a yawn, Tim Drake, the current Robin, climbed out of the long black  
car. Batman followed, and turned towards Nightwing, who still straddled the  
motorcycle. The dark-haired young man looked haggard. They all looked tired,  
their chins, beneath the masks, grimy.  


  
Nightwing swung his leg over and dismounted; at the first step, he winced.  


  
"Dick?" Bruce stepped forward, reaching out a gloved hand, but Nightwing  
raised his own hand in denial.  


  
"It's okay, Bruce, really. A bruise."  


  
Tim ran his fingers through his hair tiredly, watching the other two. Batman  
nodded assent, then rested his gloved hand briefly on Nightwing's shoulder,  
a movement that seemed as much to comfort himself as his former partner.  
Nightwing looked up, surprised; it was not a gesture that was used often.  


  
Then the three moved towards the stairs and changing area. As they passed  
the high tech machinery, Batman idly ran his finger along the surface. It  
came away clean.  


  
"I'll bet--" *yawn* "--good old Alfred is sound asleep and snoring 'bout  
now," Robin said.  


  
"Hmmm," Bruce said noncommittally. "Yes, I suppose so." He rubbed his fingers  
together, getting rid of dust that had not been there.  


  
4:18 am

  
Alfred's Quarters  


  
He heard their voices, downstairs. Lying still in the half darkness, Alfred  
found himself holding his breath--how many voices? Would one be leaning,  
slumped, against the other two? Would he hear Bruce hoarsely calling for  
him, the summons to battle at that gurney again?  


  
They came nearer. The two younger were ribbing each other and laughing softly.  
"I would have had 'im if that piece of metal hadn't..." "Yeah? You and what  
army?" "Hey, who was it that saved your bacon?" Then the deeper voice said  
something subdued to the other two. The voices bid each other exhausted-sounding  
goodnights, and he heard footsteps receding, then silence.  


  
Alfred smiled. Another night weathered. In the morning, the three would rise  
to the smell of eggs and bacon cooking; and he would bid them a cheerful  
greeting in a sun-filled kitchen, the traces of his own exhaustion visible  
only to those who paused long enough to look hard for it. At such times,  
Alfred's training in the theater came in handy.  


  
Sometimes, on certain mornings, Bruce would give him a sharp, searching look  
across a plate of toast or a pot of coffee. Once he had said, neutrally,  
"Sleep well, Alfred?" "Perhaps not as well as usual, sir. The warm weather  
keeps me awake and restless."  


  
Bruce had nodded, as if accepting it. But things were well understood between  
them.  


  
In the room that was starting to hold a pre-dawn appearance, Alfred turned  
over on his side, and sank slowly into sleep. If he dreamed that morning,  
he did not remember it.

* * *


End file.
